Nokia death watch

Sure, the OS signifies the potential scope of the product. A $150 Android phone in my hands would be a hotspot and I'd use over a GB of data a month. The same phone in my father's hands and it would be a camera phone with pictures of his grandkids. Developers and services woul court me and discount him because I spend hundreds a year on apps, games, SW, and services; the OEM would get their $10 from both of us, but only one of us shows up on the radar of Google Play.

* Can install apps from 3rd party developers who didn't have to jump through onerous hoops to get into the app store. I.E. the Verizon App Store selling $5 dumbphone poker games doesn't count.

* Can open general-purpose TCP/IP (or at least un-fucked-with HTTP) sockets to random servers, not just a customized network stack that only allows connections back to a virtual walled garden of services.

** ^^^ implies that you can do things like use an IM client that isn't blessed by your carrier operator

* Has a web browser that works with non-mobile versions of websites.

A locked-down Android that only runs blessed apps and where all IM apps use IMs-count-as-SMS-messages is a glorified featurephone.

Conversely, a cheap-ass and underpowered Android 2.x device that none-the-less is unencumbered by artificial carrier restrictions is still a smartphone.

* Can install apps from 3rd party developers who didn't have to jump through onerous hoops to get into the app store. I.E. the Verizon App Store selling $5 dumbphone poker games doesn't count.

Careful. Some people would say that's an apt description of Apple's store .

I would say rather, is there a robust marketplace in third party apps. I wouldn't know for sure, but I'll bet that for the OSes we think of as "smart phone" OSes, they will all have at least 50,000 apps.

I guess that it is doubtful that Verizon type stores have even 5,000. Who really wants to develop for "Verizon" except "Verizon" and maybe a few captive guys or some rare someone who is convinced that some obscure hardware feature is an opportunity to do a specialty game.

(Interested, I googled to see if I could do better than "it is doubtful" and I found this: http://developer.verizon.com/content/vd ... -apps.html Which appears to suggest Verizon's store is going away. No indication of a replacement marketplace. Maybe it's a tough little business if you're not the big two (or even big four)).

Careful. Some people would say that's an apt description of Apple's store

Yeah, but there's a difference between "curated" and "exclusive club". Xbox/PS dev kits are an exclusive club. They cost thousands of dollars and you have to sign very detailed contracts. In comparison, the iOS/Win8/WP/Android app stores have a little bit of a speed bump to prevent total trash and malware, but are basically open to all. Buying a Mac to developer for iOS isn't exactly cheap, but it's nothing compared to a game console dev kit and you don't have to a sign a special contract for the privilege.

Yeah, I have a 710 now and at least partly due to the Zune fiasco I wasn't looking to move to WinPhone8 and probably go Android for my next phone, but damn now I'm seriously looking at the 520. I don't have the needs (yet) for a "superphone", the 710 has served me decently but the lack of SD card support is the main problem with only ~5GB free, so the 520 will feel like a huge step up. Hell with a 32GB SD card I probably will only have to deal with the horrible Sync app once anyways, that's more than my music collection. And yes, finally a damn sound equalizer.

Nothing really compares in that price range, hell Galaxy S2's are still more expensive here. Think I'm going to pull the trigger.

And I would refute that too on anyone with a limited data plan. The cloud is there for that one off time I want a song or maybe I just matched something on the radio. Beyond that, it's already sitting on my device, not wasting my precious data.

And I would refute that too on anyone with a limited data plan. The cloud is there for that one off time I want a song or maybe I just matched something on the radio. Beyond that, it's already sitting on my device, not wasting my precious data.

Well, you're the flipside of me, I guess. I have a limited data plan (technically, it's still 5GB), and I stream almost all of my music. I only have a couple hundred songs stored locally for offline use. I have such a large music library that it's simple impossible to bring it all with me, and I voraciously consume mew music all the time. Plus, with Nokia Music and Pandora, I have even more ways to get the music I want online. So for me, having the music cloud is just another way for me to stream my music. (and back on my iPhone, I had Orb from my home computer to achieve exactly this as well)

I'm also on WiFi the majority of the time I use music, which doesn't affect my plan, obviously.

So yes, there are plenty of valid use cases where streaming music isn't a good solution. However, with cloud storage of your library, that set of use cases got smaller.

One annoying thing about the XBox Music Cloud, it can't stream anything it doesn't have in its Marketplace. So all my Metallica, Led Zeppelin, live albums, and underground stuff have to be stored locally if I want them at all.

I don't think streaming of music, in a mobile context, is going to scale well.

Mobile bandwidth is limited pretty much by physics (secondarily by politics).

It's easy to find articles talking about how we're all going to find ourselves seeking out WiFi (which happens in my case, at least to some extent). I do it a bit less than I used to, but on the other hand, I'm not streaming music or (especially) video.

Video looks out of bounds to me except as a sometimes thing. That's going to be the realm of WiFi and home wireless for the most part.

When I have good connection, I browse web including BF. When I'm offline or have bad connection, like in subway or on plane, I tend to listen music, maybe along with a book or an ebook. I want my music with me, not in the cloud.

You don't even need to torture yourself with the sync app. Copy/paste in Explorer yo.

Lack of WiFi syncing of mp3 is a huge step backwards though.

True, though now with the cloud locker actually working on XBox Music, there is less incentive to store music directly on your phone, other than a core set for when you don't want to use bandwidth.

I'm not in the states, plus the music I listen to are 99% Japanese which aren't available on XBox Music even in Japan in the first place (and then if it does become available, region lock will still prevent me from getting them via the cloud, though that's not so much MS's fault but the Japanese people's lack of international business sense). So WiFi syncing is a big deal to me as my major source of music is still from CDs which I rip myself.

MS is not iterating fast enough so it's holding back their hardware partners in many ways. MS made the right decision in mandating minimum specifications, but should have left the upper end relatively unbound. I understand about WP7 but they MUST have seen where the industry was headed with 1080p screens when they were working on WP8.

I think Nokia might have a nice hit when they release the Lumia with the 41MP pureview. It might be even better since they've have had time to work on the tech further. The only question is if the OS allows such hardware innovations.

It doesn't make much fucking sense for Microsoft to be this slow. Sure, I guess I can understand why it took so long to get WP8 out; but that's been done for how long now? It was released end of October, which is 7 months ago; I can only assume it was done 1 - 3 months before that, which means Microsoft have had 8 - 10 months. And we've seen some very minor updates, with no roadmap.

Companies have processes and new ones, even necessary ones, do not arise overnight.

These are big, complicated products and the release process has a lot of custom work and testing.

The desire to hustle is certaily there, they read the trade press and see the problems, too, but "hustle", which is a requirement, is counter-balanced by the problem of "we have to put this out in XXX countries" and "we can't put out shit" all of which represents who knows how many actual barriers to getting on with it.

It seems obvious that MS hasn't come up with a new process for mobile software release. It needs one, but it's no finger snap to get it. This may take a while, for better and probably for worse.

What they have probably is 90 per cent the same as what they do for base, desktop Windows.

This is no excuse, mind you, quite the contrary. But, since I've experienced these processes (and how different they can be) in several companies, I can give some limited sympathy for this.

The thing is, you screw up a release badly enough and it is a career ending or at least career wounding event. So, there's a lot of understandable caution that goes all the way down through middle management right down to the individual developers.

It doesn't make much fucking sense for Microsoft to be this slow. Sure, I guess I can understand why it took so long to get WP8 out; but that's been done for how long now? It was released end of October, which is 7 months ago; I can only assume it was done 1 - 3 months before that, which means Microsoft have had 8 - 10 months. And we've seen some very minor updates, with no roadmap.

We've had the Portico update since release, another coming in July, and Blue supposedly is coming this winter (hopefully in time for holidays). Is there something bad about annual major updates with minor ones in between? That's pretty dang fast for MS to release, historically speaking.

But that's normal right now. You have Apple, who has the luxury of being able to give carriers the middle finger on blocking updates, who does major upgrades once a year with bugfixes along the way. Android is on a one year schedule with minor updates and gets destroyed by OEMs and carriers. Microsoft is on a similar yearly schedule and cannot go any faster. They don't have the problem of having their OS destroyed by the OEM, but the carrier can still block updates. Putting out updates faster will only cause a longer queue at carrier "testing".

One year is probably the sweet spot. We can point to OS X, a major full OS who just tried to go once a year, and here we are two months before the 12 months cycle is up with not even a peep. Oh sure, it'll be announced at WWDC, but not without developer betas that will push it beyond the proposed 12 month cycle.

Or, you can head (as Android is already doing) to some sort of "kernel plus" approach where most of the "OS" can be updated as an ordinary app or apps.

There's no principled position for when the OS, proper, starts and when it ends (even the kernel can, if one wishes, be kept very small, albeit at a performance cost).

So, constrained only by history and perhaps a few stray performance concerns, little keeps the "core" OS from being much smaller than it is and I suspect we're going to see that as fast as they can get there.

If Android (and MS) can restructure things enough, the carrier block becomes a much smaller issue in the end.

It doesn't make much fucking sense for Microsoft to be this slow. Sure, I guess I can understand why it took so long to get WP8 out; but that's been done for how long now? It was released end of October, which is 7 months ago; I can only assume it was done 1 - 3 months before that, which means Microsoft have had 8 - 10 months. And we've seen some very minor updates, with no roadmap.

We've had the Portico update since release, another coming in July, and Blue supposedly is coming this winter (hopefully in time for holidays). Is there something bad about annual major updates with minor ones in between? That's pretty dang fast for MS to release, historically speaking.

Happysin, I agree with you - the speed is fine, but what are the features these updates delivered? As bug fixes they are fine, I guess, but more is needed.

That's the argument for why MS should have faster releases, and they mystery why they don't. Apple updates a whole suite of apps independently of the OS and releases several OS updates a year as well; if MS can't do three OS updates a year, it can at least update app independently, correct?

It doesn't make much fucking sense for Microsoft to be this slow. Sure, I guess I can understand why it took so long to get WP8 out; but that's been done for how long now? It was released end of October, which is 7 months ago; I can only assume it was done 1 - 3 months before that, which means Microsoft have had 8 - 10 months. And we've seen some very minor updates, with no roadmap.

We've had the Portico update since release, another coming in July, and Blue supposedly is coming this winter (hopefully in time for holidays). Is there something bad about annual major updates with minor ones in between? That's pretty dang fast for MS to release, historically speaking.

Happysin, I agree with you - the speed is fine, but what are the features these updates delivered? As bug fixes they are fine, I guess, but more is needed.

Portico delivered message drafts, respond to calls with texts and keep WiFi alive as well as bugfixes. GDR2 is adding stuff and fixing stuff too, but it's rumour until they announce it (BUILD I'm guessing).

That's the argument for why MS should have faster releases, and they mystery why they don't. Apple updates a whole suite of apps independently of the OS and releases several OS updates a year as well; if MS can't do three OS updates a year, it can at least update app independently, correct?

Yes it can. They already do this in Windows 8 and Microsoft apps that don't ship with the OS get updated independently from the OS on a regular basis, exactly like Apple's model. I'm betting we'll see things like email, media and such get decoupled from the OS in Windows Phone 8.1 like it is in Windows 8 so they can be updated independently.

Yes, but the argument that 'we will see things' means 'they aren't decoupled'

Hence my point, 'mystery'.

But your comparison was Apple, who, by all means, has the exact same release timeline as Microsoft right now. They both do major releases once a year, some minor release throughout the year with bugfixes and small features and update apps that they make, but not ship with the OS, independently from the OS. The only difference is Apple can do a worldwide push of an update in one day, whereas Microsoft is bogged down by carrier "testing". What is decoupled then? Apple doesn't update Mail or Music independently from the OS. But it will update, say, the Apple Store app whenever it feels like it.

Yes, but the argument that 'we will see things' means 'they aren't decoupled'

Hence my point, 'mystery'.

But your comparison was Apple, who, by all means, has the exact same release timeline as Microsoft right now. They both do major releases once a year, some minor release throughout the year with bugfixes and small features and update apps that they make, but not ship with the OS, independently from the OS. The only difference is Apple can do a worldwide push of an update in one day, whereas Microsoft is bogged down by carrier "testing". What is decoupled then? Apple doesn't update Mail or Music independently from the OS. But it will update, say, the Apple Store app whenever it feels like it.

Apple doesn't have to decouple because they can already release 7 minor and one major update a year with little delay; on top of that they already have Find Friends, iBooks, Fine my iPhone, Remote, and a couple others already decoupled.

Microsoft, on the other hand cannot claim to have the same release timeline since as you say Microsoft is bogged down by carrier testing; they can say they do 7 minor and one major update a year, after some delay, but they cannot claim they have decoupled functionality from the OS to mitigate the delay.

My point isn't to argue the 'decoupling', it's to argue the delay; Microsoft's decoupling of functionality to mitigate delay is incomplete, ergo it's delay is still present.

For better or worse, MS will never be immune to the carriers. They're never going to be faster than Apple on updates because of that. However, they have insulated themselves far better than Android. WP updates end up somewhere in the middle, just like their choices and flexibility in phones.

Of course, Apple isn't immune to their own update woes. I sold my iPhone 3G because iOS 4 was absolutely unusable on the 3G when it was first released, and Apple didn't support a method of downgrading at the time. iOS 6.1 broke 3G for some users, causing the carriers to essentially beg people not to update, because their shit would break. While Apple is in a strong position with its software updates, their skipping of the carrier testing step is not without its own hassles.

Uh, it only does nothing if you don't have kids. Swipe to the right enables the Kid's Corner.

D'oh! I forgot I'm still using 7.8!

The overwhelming likelihood is they will make it into a Live Tile in its own right. It makes sense with the overall design of Windows Phone. It's either that or the copy the "pull from the top" interface.

It doesn't make much fucking sense for Microsoft to be this slow. Sure, I guess I can understand why it took so long to get WP8 out; but that's been done for how long now? It was released end of October, which is 7 months ago; I can only assume it was done 1 - 3 months before that, which means Microsoft have had 8 - 10 months. And we've seen some very minor updates, with no roadmap.

Microsoft has a reputation for being perpetually embroiled in internal corporate power struggles. It's hard to move quickly when your company is full of rulers of small fiefdoms plotting to stab each other in the back. For Windows and Office where there aren't any real competitors it's not a big deal. For fast-moving, ultra-competitive, lightspeed-innovating markets like phones and tablets, it's pretty much slowly committing suicide because you just can't keep up.